


Arts n' Crafts, Coloring Books, & Naps

by HowAboutThatSnapback



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Family Fluff, Fluff, Ford and Mabel bonding, This is what the heart needs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:51:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7533472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowAboutThatSnapback/pseuds/HowAboutThatSnapback
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ford spends the day with Mabel. Written for the @the-subpar-ghost</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arts n' Crafts, Coloring Books, & Naps

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Gravity Falls or it's characters, merely the plot.

It was an average day at the Shack. Stan was out working in the Mystery Shack along with that gopher man and redheaded girl, Dipper was hanging out with the redheaded girl (even Ford could see this boy had a crush on her) and Mabel… actually, he wasn’t quite sure what the girl was doing at the moment. Possibly playing with her pig- Waffles. Meanwhile Ford is taking a break from finding an alternate solution to sealing the rift by getting himself a tall glass of water to rehydrate.

He takes a long sip of water and suddenly he hears a loud noise behind him that sounds distinctly like Mabel’s voice and he chokes on his water out of surprise.

“Sorry, Grunkle Ford,” the twelve year old says while patting his back.

“I-hit’s al-ri-ght, swe-ethea-rt,” he coughs while one fist pounds on his chest to help clear his air passages. When he’s finally able to breathe properly he asks, “What is it, Mabel?”

“Oh,” she perks and then smiles brightly at him. “I was hoping we could do something today. Y’know, just Mabel, Grunkle Ford bonding.”

He scratches his chin with indecision. “I dunno, I’ve got quite a few things to…” And that was when he noticed the puppy-dog eyes. He’s left gaping, hopelessly defenseless against her pout despite his best attempts to put his work first. It was when her eyes started tearing up that he broke and frantically said, “Nonono, don’t cry! I’ll do it.”

She sniffles and wipes at her eyes. “R-really?”

He nods firmly and then gives her a reassuring smile. “Yes.”

“Promise?” She asks, holding up her pinky and ring finger.

He blinks in surprise. The only one that’s ever done this is Stanley back when they were young children- they had to have stopped at the age of nine or ten. He’s surprised that she’d do this.

After getting over his initial shock, he hooks his last two fingers with hers and says, “Promise.”

She immediately perks up and beams at him. “Great!~ Let’s go.”

_Did I just get played?_ He wonders as he allows himself to be tugged into the living room.

“Er… what’re we doing?” Ford asks as he sees that whatever the most colorful holiday is has thrown up in the living room.

“Arts and crafts!~” Mabel beams and pulls him so she sits next to her. “We can make anything our imagination can come up with.”

Ford picks up a colorful pipe cleaner and turns it this way and that. “Well… some things I suppose… it’d be hard to make a thermonuclear missile with these materials, but not impossible…”

Mabel blinks at him. “Um… Grunkle Ford, we’re not making weapons. We’re making pretty things to use as decoration or maybe something to wear or something.”

He blushes in embarrassment. “Perhaps you can reteach me how to do arts and crafts?”

Her eyes light up at the prospect of teaching him something. “Of course!”

She eagerly shows him how to make little animals out of the pipe cleaners- which he could’ve figured out easily, but he decided to indulge her. After all, she’s only twelve and she seems so happy to be teaching him how to do these things.

“Aaaand, there,” Mabel says, backing away to look at Ford wearing her homemade kitty costume

If it weren’t Mabel, he doesn’t think he’d even allow the little tiger ears made of pipe cleaners to be put on his head and the kitty nose with whiskers hanging from his glasses.

“How do I look?” He asks.

Mabel grins. “You look great, Grunkle Ford. Here, look.”

_Yep… I look about as silly as I thought I would look_ , he thinks.

“Now for coloring,” Mabel insists while pulling out two coloring books and handing one to him.

“My Little Pony? Is this just filled with a bunch of horses?”

“And there’s a pegasus and a unicorn- but this one’s nice,” Mabel hurriedly assures.

“Alright… and what do you have?”

“Sesame Street coloring book!” She says excitedly.

“Oh, I remember watching Sesame Street when I was a kid,” he says.

Mabel gasps. “Sesame Street must be ancient.”

Ford’s eyebrow twitches. _How old does she think I am?_

“I believe it came out when Stan and I were three or four,” Ford mutters while flipping through the Sesame Street coloring book. “Ah, Count Von Count. I believe he was my favorite character… and the Cookie Monster- I believe he was Stan’s favorite.”

“Mom and dad said I cried watching Cookie Monster. At first they thought I was scared, but apparently I was crying because he was wasting cookies,” Mabel says, earning a small chuckle from Ford.

“That’s a cute baby monster,” he says, pointing to one on a page he’s landed on

“His name’s Elmo,” she informs. “He’s my favorite character.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. He has a pet fish named Dorothy and he sings this really catchy song,” she informs and then quickly lurches forward. “No! He’s not green- that’s Oscar the Grouch. Elmo’s red, see?”

She shows him the cover of the book and points to the red monster.

“I must’ve missed that,” he says and then grabs the red crayon and sets to coloring him the right color.

He listens attentively to Mabel talk about her favorite characters and episodes of any show that happens to cross her mind as they color.

Apparently at some point he yawned without realizing it because she asks, “Have you gotten any sleep?”

“Hm? Of course,” he replies.

She hums thoughtfully and then beams. “We can take a nap together!”

“Aren’t you too old for naps?” He questions with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re never too old for naps, Grunkle Ford. Grunkle Stan takes them all the time,” she informs. “We can have stuffed animals to cuddle with or we can be cuddle buddies on the couch.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Please? A nap would be perfect for Mabel, Grunkle Ford bonding time and you promised,” she reminds.

“Oh, alright. A nap couldn’t hurt,” he sighs.

“Great! I’ll go get my stuffed animals,” she replies and runs upstairs.

_How did I go from working taking a quick ten minute break to spending hours… goofing off?_  He wonders.

_Those puppy-dog eyes. Her cuteness has to be scientifically impossible to resist,_  he decides. There’s no other logical explanation.

“I didn’t know which one you’d wanna cuddle up with so I decided to bring them all,” Mabel says, coming out with an abundance of stuffed animals- save for her unicorn that she’s shunned.

“That’s very considerate,” he praises with a warm smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she says as she climbs onto the couch.

He wordlessly gets on the couch and he smiles in bemusement as she arranges the stuffed animals around him, tucking a puppy under one arm and a kitten under the other with a stuffed rabbit on his shoulder.

“And you need ooone more,” she says after she’s done.

“I don’t see anymore stuffed animals,” he says, looking to the ground to see if she dropped one.

“Not a stuffed animal, silly,” she says.

“Oof!” Ford grunts when Mabel falls forward onto his chest.

“Me!”

He smiles and hugs her. “I think this one’s my favorite.”

She grins up at him and then wiggles upward so she can kiss his cheek. “I love you, Grunkle Ford.”

His heart melts immediately and he cuddles her into his chest and kisses her cheek. “I love you, too, Mabel.”

“Now nap time,” she says while resting her head on his chest.

He hums happily and slips off.

It had to have been the best nap he’s had in decades.


End file.
